Henry Mancini
Henry Mancini (/mænˈsiːni/ man-SEE-nee; born Enrico Nicola Mancini; April 16, 1924 – June 14, 1994)[1] was an American composer, conductor, arranger, pianist and flutist. Often cited as one of the greatest composers in the history of film,[2][3] he won four Academy Awards, a Golden Globe, and twenty Grammy Awards, plus a posthumous Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award in 1995.
Henry Mancini
Enrico Nicola Mancini
April 16, 1924
Maple Heights, Ohio, U.S.
June 14, 1994 (aged 70)
Los Angeles, California, U.S.
- Composer
- songwriter
- arranger
- conductor
Piano
1946–1994
His works include the theme and soundtrack for the Peter Gunn television series as well as the music for The Pink Panther film series ("The Pink Panther Theme") and "Moon River" from Breakfast at Tiffany's. The Music from Peter Gunn won the inaugural Grammy Award for Album of the Year. Mancini enjoyed a long collaboration in composing film scores for the film director Blake Edwards. Mancini also scored a No. 1 hit single during the rock era on the Hot 100: his arrangement and recording of the "Love Theme from Romeo and Juliet" spent two weeks at the top, starting with the week ending June 28, 1969.
Early life[edit]
Henry Mancini was born Enrico Nicola Mancini in Maple Heights, Ohio, and raised in West Aliquippa, Pennsylvania.[4][5] Both his parents were Italian immigrants. Originally from Scanno, Abruzzo, his father Quintiliano "Quinto" Mancini was a laborer at the Jones and Laughlin Steel Company and amateur musician who first came to the U.S. as a teenager around 1910.[6][7] His mother Anna (née Pece) came to the U.S. from Forlì del Sannio, Molise, as an infant.[6]
At age eight, Mancini began learning the piccolo.[8][9] Mancini said that hearing Rudolph G. Kopp's score in the 1935 Cecil B. DeMille film The Crusades inspired him to pursue film music composition despite his father's wishes for him to become a teacher.[10][11]
At age 12, he began studying piano and orchestral arrangement under Pittsburgh concert pianist and Stanley Theatre (now Benedum Center) conductor Max Adkins. Not only did Mancini produce arrangements for the Stanley Theatre bands, but he also wrote one for Benny Goodman, an up-and-coming bandleader introduced to him by Adkins.[5][12] According to Mancini biographer John Caps, the young Mancini "preferred music arranging to any kind of musical performance, but taking apart a Chopin mazurka or Schumann sonata in order to play it helped him see...how the puzzle of form, meter, melody, harmony, and counterpoint had been solved by previous composers."[13]
After graduating from Aliquippa High School in 1942, Mancini first attended the Carnegie Institute of Technology (now Carnegie Mellon University) in Pittsburgh.[14][15] Later that year, Mancini transferred to the Juilliard School of Music in New York City following a successful audition in which he performed a Beethoven sonata and improvisation on "Night and Day" by Cole Porter.[16][5] Because he could only take orchestration and composition courses in his second year, Mancini studied only piano in his first year at Juilliard, in a condition Caps called "aimless and oppressed—a far cry from Adkins's enabling protective environment."[17]
After turning 18, Mancini enlisted in the United States Army Air Forces in 1943. While in basic training in Atlantic City, New Jersey, he met musicians being recruited by Glenn Miller. Owing to a recommendation by Miller, Mancini was first assigned to the 28th Air Force Band before being reassigned overseas to the 1306th Engineers Brigade in France. In 1945, he helped liberate the Mauthausen-Gusen concentration camp in Austria.[16]
Death[edit]
Mancini died of pancreatic cancer in Los Angeles on June 14, 1994.[11] He was working at the time on the Broadway stage version of Victor/Victoria, which he never saw on stage.
Personal life[edit]
Mancini was survived by his wife of 47 years, singer Virginia "Ginny" O'Connor, with whom he had three children. She died on October 25, 2021, at age 97.[26]
They had met while both were members of the Tex Beneke orchestra, just after World War II. In 1948, Mrs. Mancini was one of the founders of the Society of Singers, a non-profit organization which benefits the health and welfare of professional singers worldwide.
One of Mancini's twin daughters, Monica Mancini, is a professional singer; her sister Felice runs The Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation (MHOF). His son Christopher is a music publisher and promoter in Los Angeles.
Legacy[edit]
Henry Mancini created a scholarship at UCLA and some of his library and works are archived in the music library at UCLA, with additional materials preserved at the Library of Congress.
In 1996, the Henry Mancini Institute, an academy for young music professionals, was founded by Jack Elliott in Mancini's honor, and was later under the direction of composer-conductor Patrick Williams. By the mid-2000s, however, the institute could not sustain itself and closed its doors on December 30, 2006.[27] The American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP) Foundation "Henry Mancini Music Scholarship" has been awarded annually since 2001.
In 2005, the Henry Mancini Arts Academy was opened as a division of the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center. The center is located in Midland, Pennsylvania, minutes away from Mancini's hometown of Aliquippa. The Henry Mancini Arts Academy is an evening-and-weekend performing arts program for children from pre-K to grade 12, with some classes also available for adults. The program includes dance, voice, musical theater, and instrumental lessons.
The American Film Institute ranked Mancini's songs "Moon River" No. 4 and "Days of Wine and Roses" No. 39 on their 100 Years...100 Songs list, and his score for The Pink Panther No. 20 on their list of the greatest film scores. His scores for Breakfast at Tiffany's (1961), Charade (1963), Hatari! (1962), Touch of Evil (1958) and Wait Until Dark (1967) were also nominated for the list.